One Step Closer
by Red River
Summary: "Castiel was not sure what he understood about Sam, except that there was a great deal he did not, and wanted to." Through the heat of a long summer, Castiel explores his changing feelings as he and Sam grow closer, one brief moment at a time. A series of drabbles; Cas/Sam pre-slash. Mild AU; part of the Other Guardian 'verse.
1. Curiosity

A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There's a detailed note about it on my profile page, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.

This story is a set of drabbles set over the summer; it follows "Starbright," and focuses on the evolution of Castiel's feelings as he and Sam grow closer, moment by tiny moment. Rotating perspectives, including Dean's; this story is still technically pre-slash, but getting closer to full slash all the time.

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Castiel's hand had been moving on its own. It was a strange sensation. He was not accustomed to thinking of his vessel in terms of its discrete parts, but recently that had begun to change; more and more he looked down to find that his hands were not where he'd left them, that they had moved without his conscious instruction or even his awareness. The mutiny was mildly unsettling; his assignment to the Winchesters was not the first time he had borrowed physical form, but it was the first time that form had ever gotten away from him.

More curious had been Castiel's gradual realization that his hands always moved in the same direction. Toward Sam.

It had happened again, standing in the swirl of disarray that seemed to follow the Winchesters into each new hotel room: loose newspaper clippings and fast-food wrappers and a pile of used towels on the floor of the bathroom which Dean was picking through, searching for the cleanest one to wipe the gun oil from his hands. Castiel was not certain when he had drifted to stand behind Sam, seated at the small table that rocked with the rhythm of his fingers on the keyboard—was less certain when his hand had settled across the chair's top rail, the emblem of a poorly carved rose pressed into his palm and the back of Sam's thick jacket just brushing his curled knuckles every time he moved.

Sam and Dean were engaged in discussion, calling back and forth across the room, but Castiel barely heard them; his attention was fixed on the small patch of skin between Sam's hair and his collar, and how even without touching he could feel the heat of Sam's body against the backs of his fingers. He wasn't sure how such a mild feeling could be so distracting. It was hardly a feeling at all—he was certain a human would not have felt anything, and even as an angel the impression was little more than a prickle at the edge of his senses, the possibility of heat. Somehow that only made him want to lean closer, to reach out and trace the flats of his fingers down the path of Sam's spine, confirm the warmth that tingled on his skin. Castiel found that his hand had unclenched from the back of the chair, and he curled his fingers carefully in once more, watching closely to make sure they moved as they were assigned. The dark wood felt unbearably cold against his fingertips.

"Cas?"

Castiel looked up to find that Sam had turned in his seat, craning his neck back so he could catch the angel's eyes. There was a wrinkle across his forehead that Castiel recognized as confusion; he had the sense that Sam must have asked him something and was waiting for a reply, a theory confirmed by the way Dean was leaning against the bathroom doorframe, his arms crossed impatiently over his chest. Castiel looked between them and then tightened his grip on the back of the chair, scrutinizing Sam's waiting expression once more.

"I apologize. I was…preoccupied. What do you need?"

Sam's eyebrows drew together, one hand straying up to brush his hair out of suddenly concerned eyes. "Cas, you okay? What is it?" he asked, and then, before Castiel had a chance to answer: "If you need to do something else, don't worry about it—we can always get Bobby to overnight us the book instead—"

"Oh, hell no, Sam," Dean broke in, stepping forward until he was close enough to deliver a punch to the angel's shoulder. Castiel glanced down at the point of impact, wondering why he hadn't felt the same heat from Dean. "The mayor of Creeptown here spent the last fifteen minutes staring at the back of your head. He can spare ten seconds for a special delivery. You don't pay for postage when you're being stalked by FedEx incarnate."

Castiel was not certain where Creeptown was; he had almost forgotten, preoccupied with the infinitely small distance between him and Sam, that he had been called down to retrieve something from Bobby Singer's house in the first place. Sam protested for a moment longer and then bent forward to write the title on the hotel's complimentary notepad, and Castiel could not stop himself from leaning forward a few inches too, watching over his shoulder as the pen scratched across the textured paper, the strands of Sam's hair falling softly across his clavicle. Dean retreated to the bathroom, shaking his head. And though Castiel had fought to exert his will over them, he could not stop his fingers from uncurling from the top rail of the chair and reaching out for Sam before he disappeared, three fingertips scarcely brushing the plane of his back—and in the rush of grace after his departure, Castiel pondered the feeling he'd experienced for just a millisecond as he lost corporeal form: the feel of Sam straightening in his chair, the muscles of his back pulled taut under his fingertips, and then the blush of pressure as Sam leaned back ever so slightly into his touch. He wondered if Sam would lean toward him again when he returned.

Castiel was not certain what he understood about Sam, except that there was a great deal that he didn't, and wanted to.


	2. Captivation

A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There's a detailed note about it on my profile page, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.

This story is a set of drabbles set over the summer; it follows "Starbright," and focuses on the evolution of Castiel's feelings as he and Sam grow closer, moment by tiny moment. Rotating perspectives, including Dean's; this story is still technically pre-slash, but getting closer to full slash all the time.

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There was something rapturous about man in his sleep.

Castiel stood at the edge of the bed, looking down at the gentle splay of Sam's sleeping form, his limbs utterly quiet beneath the white sheet, his hair a soft whirl about his face. Castiel had long observed the instincts in man that were war, greed, faithlessness, bloodshed—but this was an aspect of humanity that he was only beginning to see, the beauty of the absolute stillness, the faith that was inherent in closing their eyes and trusting the world to leave them untouched until they awoke. The angel considered Sam's face turned into the pillows, the way the muted light through slatted blinds softened every line of his features, turning his nose, the slope of his jaw into gentle rises and falls, as mild as his shallow breaths. In sleep man was as a child, innocent, unknowing, washed clean of all transgressions. In sleep, man was captivating.

A loud snore pulled Castiel's eyes to the other bed, where Dean lay sprawled in a heap, one leg jutting off the back of the mattress and his open mouth ringed with glittering drool. Castiel's eyebrows drew together as he turned his gaze decidedly back to Sam.

It was not his intention to wake the Winchesters; what he had to say could wait for a later time. But he could not quite stop himself, before he departed, from reaching out to smooth a strand of Sam's dark hair down against the threads of the pillow—nor from entertaining the possibility, as he lifted his wings, that it was not man in the infinite that was captivating. Perhaps it was just Sam.

.x.

"I apologize, Sam."

Sam looked up from his laptop at the angel who had reappeared in the middle of the hotel room, looking, as usual, slightly ruffled. Sam stood up from his chair at the small round table.

"Hey, Cas. Where's Dean?"

The angel cast a fleeting glance at the door before his eyes came back to Sam. "He will return shortly. I came ahead to apologize to you. Dean has made it clear that I assaulted you earlier. It was not my intention."

Sam winced a little at the memory of Cas arriving in the hotel room fifteen minutes before while Sam stood at the microwave reheating his gas station coffee, and how Castiel had, with a very awkward attempt at being casual, reached out and planted his hand right on Sam's ass. It was so obviously a mistake that Sam had tried to brush the whole incident off, but Dean, on his way out of the bathroom with toothpaste foam caked around his mouth, had basically blown his top. Sam had heard him shouting all the way down the hall outside the hotel room as he dragged Cas off for a "little chat."

Castiel seemed to be waiting for a response, so Sam dredged up a smile that wasn't too uncomfortable, a shrug rolling through his shoulders. "It was an accident, Cas. Don't worry about it, okay?"

"Dean has explained the restricted zones to me," Castiel replied, glancing at the crotch of Sam's jeans in a way that made it clear Sam's older brother hadn't done a good enough job explaining everything. The angel's eyes lifted to meet Sam's again. "He has also suggested I refrain from touching you in the future, to avoid mistakes."

"Oh, Cas, you don't…"

Sam bit his lip. Dean would be pissed that Sam was undermining him in the angel education department, especially so soon after delivering his ultimatum—but remembering all the times Cas had tried to reach out to him in the last week or two, so obviously trying to make a gesture that was as unnatural to him as Sam breathing underwater, Sam couldn't bring himself to slap that hand away. And even though he knew he shouldn't be pushing his luck, he also knew he couldn't live never feeling that gentle hand on his again, even if that would never mean as much to Castiel as it did to Sam. He gave Castiel a full smile and took the last few steps to close the distance between them.

"Touch isn't necessarily a bad thing, Cas," he said. "It's just certain places, you know? But, like, when you touched me on the shoulder the other day—that was fine." Castiel's expression was as blank as ever, but somehow Sam had a feeling he wasn't getting through; without letting himself think too hard about it Sam reached out and grabbed Castiel's right hand with his, bringing it up to rest above his collarbone. "The shoulder. Right? Or, the arm's fine…" He slid Castiel's hand down to rest on his bicep. "The back's okay, too, just a little higher than you… like, here," he said, dragging Castiel's hand behind him and settling it against the dip in his lower back. He gave the angel an encouraging smile. "Got it?"

Castiel looked up at him and wound his fingers into Sam's loose shirt. "I do. Thank you, Sam."

"No problem," Sam returned, and his chest felt light like his heart had evaporated right out of it as Castiel's eyes crinkled into a not-quite-smile. Then the door swung open and Dean screeched to a halt in the doorway, half-gaping, half-glaring at his younger brother through a mouthful of toothpaste.

"The hell, Sam?" Dean demanded.

Sam had a feeling he was going to hear about this all day in the car.

.x.

"I guess tan's your favorite color, huh, Cas?"

Castiel straightened from where he had been studying a rack of oversize sweatshirts, all of them emblazoned with a red slogan in block letters declaring _I'm Kind of a Big Deal in Nebraska_. Sam stood behind him in the narrow gas station aisle with a pair of plastic sunglasses dangling from one hand, the other clutching a spotted banana and the bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos Dean had asked them to buy on his behalf while he put gas in the car. Castiel released the sleeve of the pale brown sweatshirt he had been scrutinizing and turned to face his companion, his eyes narrowed uncertainly.

"Why would I have a preference for one color in particular?" he asked.

Sam raised his eyebrows, his lips twitching into the little smile Castiel knew by now meant he had asked about something humans considered utterly basic, perhaps even automatic. Sam shook his head and the sunglasses mimicked him, swinging like a pendulum from his index finger. "Well, I was joking, Cas—because of, you know, your coat and then…" He gestured to the sweatshirt Castiel had been examining, but then seemed to change his mind, waving the bag of Cheetos as if to dispel his unfinished thought. "Never mind. It's just a human thing, I guess; most people sort of prefer one color. I thought maybe angels did too."

Castiel glanced back at the rack of sweatshirts, recognizing for the first time that they were dyed in an array of different colors and wondering what it was in man's nature that was so inherently divisive, driven to define itself through an infinite register of particularities. Then he looked up at Sam, worrying the bridge of the sunglasses with his little finger, and decided that perhaps that was wrong—perhaps it was just one more manifestation of the singularity of a human soul, and the uniqueness that made them breathtaking. Castiel took a step toward Sam and the young man pulled his hands in, making space for them to stand toe to toe in the narrow aisle.

"What is your favorite color, Sam?" he asked, certain suddenly that this was something he very much wanted to know.

Sam gave a short laugh, as if the question surprised him. "Honestly, I haven't thought about it in a while. When I was little, it was green, but lately I guess…I guess I like blue," he finished, his teeth digging softly into his bottom lip as his eyes found Castiel's again. "Not really bright blue like the sky, but just…I don't know. Some of the most beautiful things I've ever seen are blue."

As he finished, his voice dropped nearly to a whisper, and for a long moment the fading syllables hung between them as Castiel studied him silently, trying to decipher the strange expression on Sam's face, neither awe nor longing but something in between. He leaned forward to get a closer look. Then Sam took a sharp breath and moved his right foot backward half a step, carving out a space between them once more.

"Like…the ocean," Sam added, his elbow rattling a rack of yellow bags labeled Funyuns. "Or, um, Neptune, or something. I'm gonna check out before Dean comes in and gives me the third degree—he gets pissy about his junk food. Did you want anything, Cas?"

Castiel shook his head, and then held his ground for a long moment, watching Sam retreat toward the register with the sunglasses pressed to his chest, as if holding something in. Overhead the intercom sought out shower customer thirty-nine. Castiel wondered if any human language was capable of explaining to Sam what Neptune looked like to angels, and why Sam had spoken of the ocean as blue, when it was anything but—a dazzling cacophony of brown and green and a ripple that was only light, racing up the sand on the transparent surf. A much more complicated color than blue. Titian. Auburn. The color of Sam's eyes sometimes, when he looked at Castiel.

Perhaps that was his favorite color.


	3. Change

A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There's a detailed note about it on my profile page, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.

This story is a set of drabbles set over the summer; it follows "Starbright," and focuses on the evolution of Castiel's feelings as he and Sam grow closer, moment by tiny moment. Rotating perspectives, including Dean's; this story is still technically pre-slash, but getting closer to full slash all the time.

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Dean wasn't one of those guys who pretended he knew everything. Well, maybe he was sometimes when he was two-thirds drunk at a one-third empty bar and three-thirds of the hot chicks were looking for pub quiz partners, but any guy with half a ball would have done the same in that situation. And how the hell was he supposed to know that Newton's Law and Murphy's Law were different things? Sam was the smartass in the family. But if there was one thing Dean knew up, back, and u-turned, it was his brother, and there was definitely something weird going on with Sam.

Sam was up to something. Or maybe not _up to_, per se—maybe _into_ was closer, as in he'd stuck his enormous clown-sized foot right into a great big pile of it.

Sam was getting squirrelier by the day. Dean wasn't a huge fan himself of the girly feeling-gush Sam forced on him like a red wine enema once every two weeks, but even so, he was mighty tired of getting the patented Winchester shake-and-shrug from his brother every time he asked what was on his mind while Sam stared out the passenger window, mooning over literally nothing. If wheat fields could blush, Sam would have left a red trail from Laramie to fuckin' Logansport. Then there was the illicit affair Sam was apparently having with the color blue; from Cool Ranch Doritos to Oreos to Rice Krispy Treats, Dean had never seen so much navy foil wrap in his entire life as a road warrior. He'd even caught his brother fingering a Blazin' Blue Hi-C juice box that Sam never would've touched if he wasn't currently possessed by the restless spirit of a blue gummy bear. Sam hadn't looked sideways at a juice box since he was about thirteen.

And Sam's taste buds weren't the only things that had reverted. Sam's first round of puberty had been bad enough, like watching a baby giraffe try to prance through a dollhouse. But somehow even though he was twenty-four instead of fourteen and a fully grown man—overgrown, honestly—Sam was right back in the thick of it again, catching his sleeves on coat racks and car doors and tripping over everything from table legs to his own floppy feet. And then there was the stuttering, and the blushing, and a sickening level of lash-batting…Dean had never seen a six-foot-four human wrecking ball bat his eyelashes before, but Sam was taking that talent and going pro.

And the most damning part of all was that Sam had been keeping secrets from him. Three distinct times now Sam had slipped off to the library without him and refused to tell him why, and twice more Dean had come up behind his brother while he was clacking away on his keyboard and Sam had slammed the laptop closed so fast Dean was surprised he didn't lose a fingertip. Dean _wished _it was porn, especially since it hadn't escaped his notice that Sam had been in a dry spell about as long as the Gobi Desert, but he just knew his brother too well—and besides, what kind of library stocked porn anywhere but the employee locker room? Which meant Sam was up to something else. Something he didn't want Dean to see. Something Dean just _knew_ had to do with that nerdy douchebag who called himself Castiel.

It had come to Dean's attention that Cas was hanging around more than usual, and it wasn't for him. It wasn't even for _them_. Somehow, even though he was supposed to be Dean's guardian angel, Castiel was suddenly only interested in Sam.

And what the hell was that about, anyway? Last time Dean had checked, Cas was no more capable of being interested in something than a toaster or a bargain package of socks. And Sam? Really? Twenty-four good years of field tests proved Dean was way more interesting than his geeky little brother—at least with biker chicks and barflies, and really, who else's opinion would you want?

It wasn't like anything was really going on between them, Dean told himself as he pulled into the parking lot of yet another public library, peering up at the dusty brickwork through the bug splat on the windshield. It was just a phase—Sam was angel-crushing, and Cas was just reflecting his concentration like a satellite dish. They'd get over it soon enough—especially since Castiel was about as emotionally capable as said satellite dish. It wasn't worth wasting the brain cells it would take not to care.

But that just left one thing—whatever Sam had been up to at the library. Dean swung the Impala into one of the handicap spots at the front of the library's bare lot and grabbed his phone.

"Hello? Dean?"

Sam sounded confused and a little hoarse, like he'd had his head shoved up the musty ass-crack of a hundred-year-old bookshelf for the last six hours. Dean rolled his eyes and checked his teeth in the rearview mirror.

"No, Sam. It's your _other_ awesome big brother, making a special trip to pick you up from the lamest library in Idaho instead of leaving your ass to hitchhike to the hotel. The hell are you working on in there? You know what, never mind—I'll come in and see for myself."

"Ah—don't worry about it, Dean. I'm done," Sam promised. "I actually put everything away already," he added, his lie all the more obvious because Dean could hear papers rustling and books thumping closed in the background.

"Bull," Dean told his phone. Too bad Sam had already hung up, and the phone didn't really care who was full of shit.

.x.

Castiel had never paid much attention to the human form. He was aware that it was a serial preoccupation of theirs—he had observed the way Dean's eyes tracked every window advertisement and passing figure with a vaguely feminine shape—but the concept of form was already strange to angels, and any particular idealization of that form was difficult for Castiel to conceptualize. The differences between humans were so subtle in any case as to be almost indiscernible. Or so he had maintained over his centuries as a soldier in the highest war. His assignment to the Winchesters and subsequent tenure on the lower plain had begun to change that, one of so many things that were not as simple as he had always believed.

What had not changed was the reality that, even after all these months, he had never been distracted by the human form. Not until this moment.

"Cas! Um, what—what are you…did you need something?"

Castiel paused in the doorway of the bathroom, staring back into very startled hazel eyes. He had descended to look in on the Winchesters and found them in the aftermath of a case, patching their wounds in a new hotel room, as indistinguishable as the last. Dean had his hands full stitching a cut on his forearm and complaining about the angel's timing, mostly in words Castiel did not understand—_if the Millennium Falcon was as late as your ass, that first movie would've ended very differently!—_but he had offered Castiel a tube of pain-relieving cream and told him to take it to Sam.

Sam was in the bathroom. Castiel had been warned about that specific niche of human architecture, but since he was acting on Dean's instructions, he took this as an exception and pushed the door open.

He was not certain what he had expected to find. But he was caught off guard by the image of Sam standing before the mirror in a pair of thin shorts, his torso bare, one arm curled over his head as he craned his neck and twisted to catch a glimpse of the dark bruises fluttering over his spine—and somehow, without intending to, Castiel found he had paused in the doorway, momentarily distracted by the contours and lines of this particular human form, the way the uneven shadows of the buzzing incandescent light settled in the curve of his lower back. He had not quite worked out yet _why_ that was so distracting when Sam's eyes caught his in the mirror and the hunter spun around, gasping as he accidentally bashed his knee against the pipes under the sink.

"Ah, shit…um…Dean?" Sam had called to the room beyond him, rubbing his knee with one hand and yanking a towel from the rack with the other. He didn't seem to know what to do with it, though; Castiel watched as Sam made an aborted effort to wrap it around himself and ended by just draping it against his legs, covering the light blue shorts which the angel had not previously guessed to be embarrassing. He could hear Dean laughing somewhere at his back.

"Dude, learn to knock!"

Castiel glanced back at the voice, and then his gaze returned to Sam, looking nervous and unsure as he brushed straggled hair back behind his ear. The angel frowned. Sam was not naked, so that could not be the concern. Perhaps he was upset because Castiel had not announced himself; Dead was often rebuking him for that.

"Hello, Sam," he offered. Sam tried for a smile, but didn't quite manage it.

"Hey, Cas. Ah…I was gonna be out in just a minute. Maybe you could…?" He left the end of the sentence hanging, and Castiel knew enough about humans by now to know there was a question implied there, but was less certain what it was. He held out the bottle of ointment.

"Dean asked me to bring this to you," he said. Sam reached out and plucked it from his hand almost too fast to feel the brush of their fingers passing.

"Great. Um…" Sam nodded toward the door again, his right hand still clenched in the weave of the towel. Castiel tipped his head.

"Do you need assistance applying—"

"No!" Sam assured him, a little more urgently than before. "No, I'm good. I mean…thanks anyway, Cas."

"You are…welcome," Castiel tried, taking a step back so he was out of the way of the door. But just before Sam pushed it shut again, Castiel glanced once more down the long line of his body, committing to memory the image of that strip of tanned flesh between door and doorframe, muted and warm under the yellow light. He turned away as the latch clicked shut.

Human form had never interested him before. He wondered what was so different about Sam's.


	4. Confirmation

A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There's a detailed note about it on my profile page, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.

This story is a set of drabbles set over the summer; it follows "Starbright," and focuses on the evolution of Castiel's feelings as he and Sam grow closer, moment by tiny moment. Rotating perspectives, including Dean's; this story is still technically pre-slash, but getting closer to full slash all the time.

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Sam wasn't really in the habit of stealing things from their hotels. Bars of soap, pens and the little pads of monographed paper didn't really count, and then there were a few specific things that they took when they needed them—towels, bed sheets for bandages and slings, and an honestly embarrassing amount of toilet paper for all the inevitable gas-station-slash-rest-stop-slash-side-of-the-road bathroom breaks that didn't come pre-stocked. But actually stealing things—things that were supposed to stay where they were—was more Dean's department.

Light bulbs, batteries, mirrors small enough to pull off the wall without chipping the tiles—anything silver, anything that looked like it might be a universal remote, and more than one miniature trash can had made its way into the Impala over the years, usually ending up in a park dumpster a few exits down the highway after Dean got whatever he'd wanted from them. On a few occasions, when they hadn't hit a good roadside bar in a while, Dean had even stolen the trifold advertisements for pay-per-view porn—which Sam found both disgusting and a really, really sad commentary on their lives.

In general, if it wasn't nailed down or too big to fit in the car, Sam was willing to bet Dean had stolen it at least once. He did what he could to balance the scales by leaving everything exactly where he'd found it. But he'd had to make an exception, just this once.

It wasn't like the Best Western in Ogallala was going to miss one stainless steel teaspoon. And it wasn't like he and Dean _couldn't_ use a teaspoon now and then—Sam was sure he'd bought a parfait or a jar of peanut butter or something once and not had anything to scoop it out with. And the theft definitely didn't have anything to do with the fact that Cas had dropped in that morning and ended up joining them for a decidedly meager continental breakfast in the hotel lobby, runny eggs and lukewarm OJ and the same crusty pastries that were in every continental breakfast, no matter where in the country they drove, but luckily Castiel's palate didn't seem to be all that discerning—it wasn't like Sam had sat there across the table from him, lost in thought remembering the very first time he'd ever offered the angel a bite of his strawberry waffles, and his fork had sorted of drifted to a stop against his parted lips, his breakfast forgotten on his plate. It wasn't like Castiel had noticed him staring, and paused over his blueberry yogurt, and lifted his own utensil up to mirror him, the dull, dented metal of the spoon just resting against his bottom lip as he said Sam's name and incidentally kissed the back of the curve. And even if that had happened, that wasn't why Sam had stolen it off of the angel's empty plate and wrapped it in a napkin and slipped it into his pocket—because Sam was pretty sure that would make him a stalker, and he really didn't need another strike on his scorecard.

But somehow he couldn't stop himself from slipping his hand down to trace the funny concave lump in his pocket a few times during the day's long drive, and he couldn't stop himself from smiling every time he did. He was just glad Dean was too preoccupied with Metallica to notice.

.x.

Rainwater cascaded down the ledge of the overhang, heavy drops splattering against the sidewalk and rattling in the rusted gutter. In the road beyond, the summer storm was in its rage, transforming the warm afternoon with a white curtain of pounding rain. Castiel turned from the squall to study Sam, standing beside him beneath the shelter of the awning and shivering in his wet jacket, one hand raking damp bangs back out of his face. They had not found cover in time to escape the first wave of the storm.

Sam's eyes were locked on the rain, tracing the pattern of endless descent, and for a long moment Castiel could not look away from him, drawn to the inexplicably soft expression on his face, the tiny smile playing at his lips. He lost track of his right hand and only found it again when it settled against Sam's shoulder, drawing those hazel eyes back to him.

"You are wet," Castiel said, letting his fingers creep up Sam's coat to trace the cold line of the seam. "I will convey you to the hotel." He raised two fingers, but paused as Sam shook his head.

"Not yet." Sam shoved his hands down into his pockets and shifted half a step closer, out of range of the rainwater spraying across his shoes. Castiel's hand slid along his shoulder and came to rest over the fold of his collar, his thumb pressed into the cool skin of Sam's neck. The taller man shrugged. "Just…sometimes it's nice to be out in the rain for a little while."

Castiel felt himself frown. "Dean was angry with me the last time I left you out in the rain," he said slowly, trying to remember why he had ever done that.

Sam's eyes lifted to his, and they were thick with the reflection of the rain, hazel irises all but vanishing under shards of white. Castiel wondered if he had ever seen them so bright. "Are you gonna leave me, Cas?" Sam asked.

"No," Castiel answered, too quickly, and only realized afterward that Sam was smiling. His hand fell away from his companion's shoulder but Sam caught it in the space between them, four light fingers twining into the angel's sleeve.

"Then I'm okay for a while," he said, a little laugh chasing the words as he ducked his head and gave the tan fabric of the trench coat a soft squeeze. "Besides… you're wet, too."

Castiel wondered how that had escaped him.

.x.

"Can you do my back, Cas?"

Castiel paused, scrutinizing the orange plastic of the bottle in his hand and then the man before him, the beach around them riotous with the sound of the ocean and the shouts of children racing across the sand. Sam was facing away from him, presenting the breadth of his tan back, but after a moment the young man craned his head around until he could catch his eyes, one hand trapping his long hair at the nape of his neck.

"Cas?"

"I don't understand the difference," Castiel told him, though this only made Sam blink.

"What?"

"Twelve days ago," Castiel replied, "I offered to apply ointment to your back. You refused. I don't understand how this situation differs."

Sam hunched his back, and Castiel was distracted for a moment by the play of sunlight across the planes of his shoulder blades, how much better it looked without the taint of dark bruises singeing his spine. He had not known he was capable of such preference. Sam's laugh seemed slightly forced.

"Uh…yeah, sorry about that. It's just…I mean, I'd just stepped out of the shower, Cas, and um…I was in my boxers," Sam said, the last of the explanation exhaled in a rush. "But this is a swimsuit, so…it's different."

Human conventions about nudity were needlessly complex, Castiel had observed. He wondered what it was in themselves they sought to temper by drawing these lines that seemed utterly arbitrary. Castiel tilted his head, then glanced down at the elastic band of Sam's stiff blue shorts, the color sharp against the warm skin of his waist. "The area of skin obscured in the same," he said. But nonetheless he opened the top of the orange bottle and squeezed the white cream labeled sunscreen into his palm.

Sam tensed at the first touch of the cold lotion, but in a moment it had warmed against his skin and he was leaning back into Castiel's hand, dropping his head forward to expose the back of his neck. Castiel had watched Sam use the lotion first, rubbing it into his face and chest until it disappeared; he splayed his fingers through the cream and felt Sam's muscles shifting beneath his skin, tiny flickers of movement like ripples in still water as he rubbed white circles across his wide back.

"You're really good at that, Cas."

The words were so soft Castiel nearly lost them in the ambience of other sound. But his ears were attuned to Sam's voice now, heard it above all others, and he leaned forward on his knees in the sand, the heel of his hand dragging up the dip of Sam's spine.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

Sam gave a small laugh, his body rising to meet Castiel's palms as the angel smoothed sunscreen over the curve of his shoulders. "Nothing, just…your hands. Most people just sort of slap it on, but…it just feels different, I guess, the way you do it."

Castiel's hands slowed against Sam's back, one thumb resting against the nub of bone at the base of his neck. "Am I hurting you, Sam?" It was never his intention to be rough with these delicate beings, with Sam most of all, whom he sometimes felt needed to be handled far more gently than even Dean realized—but Sam only laughed again, and shook his head, a few wisps of hair escaping his restraining fingers to brush the back of Castiel's hand.

"No. It's fine, Cas. Actually, it kind of feels like a massage."

Castiel smoothed his thumb tentatively up the line of Sam's neck. "And that is a…good feeling?" he inquired after a moment. Sam made a surprised sound in the back of his throat and Castiel felt it in his hands, the vibration racing through the small finger bones like static. He had a sense that Sam did not want sunscreen in his hair, but he could not stop himself from tracing his fingertips up to the dark hairline, pressing deep into the knots beneath the skin.

"Oh—you've probably never had a massage, huh," Sam murmured, his head rolling back against the angel's hands. "Yeah, they're nice. I'll give you one sometime."

Castiel did not take issue with the suggestion—but apparently Sam did, because all at once he had pulled away and turned around to face the angel, his mouth opening and closing around syllables Castiel struggled to understand.

"Uh—I mean, not like…I mean, you probably don't even…um…" Sam scrubbed a hand down his face, leaving a crust of sand at the edge of his hair. "You know what—never mind, Cas. You probably don't need a massage anyway, since you're an angel and…" Something in his own words seemed to distress Sam even more, and he inched back again, one hand raised between them as if to pacify him. Castiel thought Sam was the one who needed calming. "Just know I didn't mean anything by it, okay?" Sam finished, offering a smile that morphed into a wince.

Castiel frowned, tilting his head slightly as he pondered his companion. "You no longer wish to give me a massage?" he asked, just to be certain.

Sam breathed in deeply, as if both lungs were suddenly empty of air. Then he ducked his head and gave a laugh that was unmistakably breathless nonetheless. "Uh…" Sam whispered, brushing a lock of hair back so Castiel could just catch a glimpse of his rueful smile. "You're really not trying to make this easy for me, are you, Cas?"

Castiel leaned forward to get a better sense of his expression, until Sam's tongue darted out to wet his lips, the nervous gesture stopping the angel where he was. "Your face is red, Sam," he said, considering the flush across his cheekbones and along the curve of each ear. "Do you need more sunscreen?"

Sam pressed his palms into the sand, his fingers spread as if searching for purpose in the slippery grains. "I don't think sunscreen's going to help," he replied, so softly the words must have been for himself. Then he pushed to his feet and cocked his head toward the water, a wisp of warm sea air sliding in between them. "Come on. Let's go see what Dean's gotten into—I don't really trust him around so many bikinis."

Castiel rose fluidly and followed him away from the towels, wondering what Sam thought Dean might do with the bikinis in question. But as they meandered side by side toward the last bastion of shore, the gulls wheeling over their heads in a great arc of angry gray wings, he found himself wondering instead what Sam's hands would feel like against the slope of his back, and why that was such a distracting thought.


	5. Chance

A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There's a detailed note about it on my profile page, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.

This story is a set of drabbles set over the summer; it follows "Starbright," and focuses on the evolution of Castiel's feelings as he and Sam grow closer, moment by tiny moment. Rotating perspectives, including Dean's; this story is still technically pre-slash, but getting closer to full slash all the time.

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For one disjointed moment, Sam thought he must be dreaming. Then his hip slammed into the sharp corner of the wooden table, sending a shower of paper and pencils skittering across the surface at it wobbled, and leaving an intense throbbing that certainly meant he had broken at least of few capillaries. Maybe a whole blood vessel had ruptured, with the way his heart was pumping the blood through his body at double time.

"Ca…Cas…" Sam stuttered, trying to steady the table and gather the fleeing pencils all at once. His lips parted but no other words quite managed to find their way to the forefront of his mind.

"Dean said that none of my clothes were appropriate for accompanying you on a…_sting_." Castiel's voice was calm, his face smooth but for one small crease in his forehead that Sam knew from experience meant that Dean had both insulted and confused the angel. Sam swallowed against his suddenly dry mouth. There had to be some confusion somewhere, though, because Cas was standing there not wearing a stitch of clothing, and that could not have been what Dean intended.

Sam was trying his damnedest not to break eye contact with the angel—trying so hard he thought maybe he hadn't blinked since his eyes had locked with that deep blue. Castiel's bare shoulders sloped down out of the edge of his Sam's vision, the soft lines of the muscles under the skin of his chest between.

Sam's eyes hadn't felt this dry since he'd challenged Dean to a staring contest to decide who had to tell Dad about the chip in his favorite hunting knife.

Cas was obviously waiting for Sam to say something. His eyebrows had drawn together slightly, meaning that whatever expression Sam had on his face was way too close to exactly how he was feeling, but he wasn't sure what to do. He was frozen.

Because Cas was an angel. And he had seen Sam unclothed before. And it meant nothing, so… Sam's eyes moved the barest fraction of an inch, enough to take in the contours of the angel's chest that smoothed into the lines of his diaphragm and stomach before he forced them back up.

If he was even a little bit tempted to look, then it _did_ mean something and he absolutely shouldn't. Like Bobby had scolded them many a time as kids when Dean got into the locked cabinets where the whisky was—_if I didn't think you were going to drink it, it wouldn't be a problem…_

But on the other hand. Cas was an angel, and this might be the only chance Sam ever got for some harmless admiration. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity he couldn't pass up. Like going to Rome and _not _seeing the statue of David.

Sam's heart thumped in his chest and he took a deep breath, letting his eyes slip—

"Jesus Fucking Christ!" Dean's swearing cut through the moment from the doorway so sharply Sam took a step back, red flaming in his cheeks. The chair scraped against the floor behind him, and this time there was no stopping the clatter of pencils as they hit the floor.

"You creepy, insane…do you have a screw loose?" Dean demanded. Castiel stiffened and the temperature in the room seemed to drop slightly.

"You said my clothes were unacceptable…"

Dean cut him off. "Your clothes, you psycho perv, not your underwear. My god, you—"

Sam's brother never got a chance to finish, the last of his statement lost in a whirl of wind and the sound of feathers. The rest of the notes flew off the table, fluttering down around the room.

And Sam just stood there, eyes fixed on the spot where Cas had disappeared—half relieved, because now the choice was out of his hands, and half wistful, because he had a feeling he had just missed his chance to admire the most beautiful thing on earth.

.x.

"Well, it's official," Dean announced, pausing in his epic toothbrushing to spit into the sink. "Cas is a royal perv."

"What?" Sam yelled from the bedroom, too busy dumping clothes and weapons into their duffel bags to come hold a conversation like a civilized person. Dean rolled his eyes.

"My guardian angel is a full-on flasher," he called out, the "f" of "flasher" spraying toothpaste drops across the mirror.

"What?" Sam repeated, over a particularly loud rattle that could only be Sam shaking the bag of silver crucifixes like a tambourine. Dean shook his head at the handsome stud in the mirror.

"Cas is a freak!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. Of course, the second he opted to just belt it out, the noise stopped and Sam appeared in the doorway, wincing at the echoes of his declaration. Sam assumed the classic bitch pose, leaning against the doorway with his hands on his hips.

"He's not a freak, Dean," his brother said. Dean had no idea why Sam was defending that creepola, but it was beyond time to set his little brother straight, with a slobbery toothbrush if necessary.

"Okay, Sam—let me give you a scenario here. Forty-something guy with unshaved stubble and a penchant for wearing flasher coats pops in on somebody buck-ass naked. In what universe in that guy not a freak?"

Sam rolled his eyes too—it looked a lot bitchier on him. "It's just Cas, Dean. He's…different."

Dean snorted and felt the tingle of minty fresh in the back of his nostrils. "Yeah. Different. You know, I don't know that many angels, but I can't imagine Uriel popping by for a chat in the nude. Let me just say that." The mental picture was more disturbing than he'd expected, and Dean gave his teeth another vigorous scrubbing, hoping that would chase the taste of preemptive bile out of his mouth. He spit, rinsed, and then looked up at Sam, wrinkling his nose like Dean practicing oral hygiene was the gross part here. "I'm telling you, Sam—something went wrong the day God made that one. If the factory warranty was still in effect, I'd haul his ass back if I had to crash the Impala to get there."

"Dean…"

"Don't _Dean_ me," Dean shot back. "And don't pretend you're above all this—every time he's come down since then, you haven't been able to talk to anything but the lamp. And since you're looking at it, then _he_ looks at it—it's like a Three Stooges routine in here. But hey, I can't blame you for blackballing the guy—you got the worse side of it. Let me tell you, though: a big slice of angel ass ain't all it's cracked up to be."

Dean was hoping for a laugh, maybe a groan from his unimpressed audience. But when he finished polishing his gums and looked back at Sam through the mirror, he was surprised to find a serious flush across his brother's face, all the way out to the tips of his ears. Sam had also slipped into his favorite defensive pose: arms crossed over his chest, shoulders so tense they were bunched up almost to his ears.

"I didn't…it's not…I wasn't looking at him, Dean," Sam protested, nervously forking a clump of hair out of his eyes. Dean hacked up a lump of toothpaste laughing.

"The hell you weren't. He was like two feet from you; it was unavoidable. Besides, I know you were having a nightmare about him last night."

Sam's face went from red to white so fast Dean was shocked the blood didn't squirt out his nose. "What?" Sam sort of wheezed. Dean cocked his head back toward the beds.

"Yeah. When I got up to use the can last night, you were tossing and turning and crap, groaning like you were being tortured. I heard you say his na—"

"I'm gonna put the bags in the car!" Sam announced all of a sudden, vanishing from the doorway like Speedy Gonzales with that fat orange cat on his tail. For a long moment Dean just stood there with a ring of toothpaste around his lips, watching his brother's dust—then he shook his head and stuck his mouth under the faucet, getting the last minty grits out of the gaps in his teeth.

Apparently he wasn't the only one traumatized by the angel peep show.

.x.

Castiel had never had to strain to hear a prayer. Angels were soldiers, not guardians, but it did not matter—Castiel had always heard every prayer that called him by name, anonymous voices crying out to him from the darkness of the lower world. He'd had to learn to block them out. But there was something different about this one, just a breath of sound that teased at the back of his mind and paused him in his flight, wings swept back by the wind of the spheres. There were no words at all, just the feeling of a soft voice saying his name, reaching out across the vastness of six dimensions and somehow, impossibly, breaking through. It reminded him of the first time Sam had leaned down to whisper to him, his lips just brushing the contour of his vessel's ears.

Without thought Castiel found himself in a dark field, the long grasses swaying against his knees and the night sky whose paths he had walked broken open above him in an infinite net of stars. The grass sighed as each blade rustled against the next. For a fraction of a moment, Castiel wondered if that was what he heard, if the Earth itself was calling his name—then he turned and found himself a few steps from the front of the Impala, and Sam stretched out across the hood, his long limbs loose against the metal that clicked as it cooled. His feet swung lightly back and forth as he lifted his head and smiled at the angel in the center of his view.

"Hey, Cas."

Castiel took an uncertain step toward him, the grasses parting before him like a sea. "Did you pray to me, Sam?" he asked, softly because there was something about Sam at ease on the hood of the car that he did not want to disturb.

Sam shook his head slowly. "No. I mean, I was thinking about you…Dean needed the hotel room for…uh…anyway, I decided to get lost for a while."

Castiel turned back to survey the world behind him—the endlessness of the low fields, the gray-green shape of distant windbreaks the only boundary between earth and sky. Far off to the right was a field of a different kind, towering white windmills churning against the dark. Castiel wondered if this was the sort of place humans might seek out when they wanted to be lost. Briefly he remembered when the area had been a vast sea, waves instead of grain undulating out into the infinite darkness. Then he turned back to the car, the past disintegrating as it always did when he was with Sam.

"What are you doing here?" Castiel persisted, stepping forward until he was flush with the front of the car. The metal was cold against his knees.

Sam shrugged, the heavy fabric of his coat dragging against the hood. "Just…looking at the stars, I guess. Making wishes." He said the last almost too quietly for Castiel to hear; it reminded the angel of the sound that had brought him down, the softest whisper of faith or desire, somehow so mesmerizing in Sam's voice. Castiel tipped his head to one side.

"Why were you thinking about me?" he asked.

Sam ducked his head over a private little smile. "I always think about you when I'm looking at the stars, Cas."

For a moment Castiel did not answer, only stood where he was and took him in, Sam, his body molded to the curve of the hood, surrounded by the reflection of the stars overhead as if he were stretched out across an immovable sea. His hand was moving without him again—somehow he was brushing the edge of Sam's thigh, the backs of his fingers pressed to the rough material of his jeans, and Sam's eyes were on his, asking questions Castiel did not know how to answer. He opened his mouth to ask one of his own.

"Do you want me to stay, Sam?"

Sam shifted, leaning up on one elbow to meet his gaze. "Do you want to stay?" he asked in return.

Castiel drew his hand away, pressed it to the cold metal to forget how warm Sam had been. "For now."

Sam's mouth twisted into a smile. Then he edged over to make room on the hood, and Castiel leaned back against the car, feeling the rhythm of Sam's heartbeat through the worn metal beneath them. He tipped his head back and wondered if when he looked at the stars, now, he would always think about Sam.


	6. Charge

A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There's a detailed note about it on my profile page, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.

This story is a set of drabbles set over the summer; it follows "Starbright," and focuses on the evolution of Castiel's feelings as he and Sam grow closer, moment by tiny moment. Rotating perspectives, including Dean's; this story is still technically pre-slash, but getting closer to full slash all the time.

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Sam hadn't done a lot of dating in his life. Part of the fault for that definitely fell on an upbringing that had been about as stable as a traveling circus, and the rest could most likely be chalked up to his abrupt transition the summer after tenth grade from a scrawny kid with a bad bowl cut to a six-four sixteen-year-old with the same bad haircut and all the grace of Pinocchio trying to dance the flamenco. Even in college, Sam hadn't really gone out much; if Jess hadn't been in every one of his law classes and eaten in the cafeteria at the same time as him every day, he probably would've spent all four years alone in the basement of the library, his most significant relationship a standing Friday-night rendezvous with a musty pile of folklore textbooks.

In the time since he and Dean had gotten back on the road, things hadn't been much better. His brother's version of dating, picking up a smashed chick in an equally smashed-up bar and forgetting her name by the time he scissor-kicked his way out of bed the next morning, had never really been to Sam's taste. And there'd been nights, probably, watching Dean stick his tongue down the throat of a beer bottle and then a long-necked blonde in short succession, when Sam had theorized that normal people—people who didn't drive around with hacksaws and shotguns in the trunk of their car—had to have a better way of meeting each other.

After today, he was pretty sure speed dating wasn't it.

Sam sat alone at a two-seater table in the back of the small French-style restaurant, doing his best not to fidget with the heavy linen napkin wrapped in a chokehold around his silverware. The bud vase overstuffed with lavender and baby's breath rocked as his knee bumped the table leg, and he reached out to steady it, wincing as his elbow cracked against the heavy wooden frame of the Eiffel Tower oil painting looming over him. Fortunately, the only waitress was too busy to shoot him a dirty look—she had her hands full with the crowd of speed daters laughing and fake laughing a few tables away from him.

The city of Coldwater wasn't that big, even by Kansas standards, but the Coldwater County QuikCupid Speed Daters Association had somehow scrounged up twelve full tables of prospective speed daters, spread out in a half-circle at the center of the otherwise empty café that was hosting the event. Sam hadn't realized they'd taken over the establishment until the waitress was already leading him to his table, and by then it was too late to back out. He'd narrowly escaped being dragged into the speed-dater pool himself—as always seemed to happen at these things, more women than men had shown up, and the older lady who was running the event was prowling for volunteers. Only his stuttered excuse that he was meeting someone had saved him, and he wasn't sure how much longer that would hold, if Dean didn't show up soon.

Coldwater hadn't really been one of Sam's must-sees, but like most of the places he'd been, it jumped the list when three bizarre male corpses turned up in the wheat fields outside town, all of them drained of blood and missing their thumbs. He and Dean had split up after driving the main drag and agreeing to meet at the café at six for dinner, but considering he'd last seen his brother leaning over the counter at the Chief Theater to flirt-interrogate the pretty girl who'd sold popcorn to one of the deceased…well, Sam figured he shouldn't be surprised Dean was taking his time. But now he was getting hungry, and he wasn't sure what to do. He could order—the waitress had been giving him significant looks since he first sat down and asked for a glass of water—but that meant eating alone in a nice restaurant in his full black suit, the one he'd been using to impersonate the FBI agent of the week, and he really didn't need the pity of twenty-four speed-daters who thought he'd been stood up. Or worse, for the moderator to invite him to join again. The two odd women out were already staring at him, picking him apart so intensely he felt like he was being checked for lice.

Sam pressed the heel of his palm into his stomach, wincing when it growled anyway. He spared a few mental curses for his brother the dick, but his heart wasn't really in it. Because if he was honest, he knew he'd gotten himself into this mess by insisting they split up in the first place, and he wouldn't have done that if he hadn't already been planning a detour, after interrogating the kooky high school teacher who'd minored in folklore but had no theories about thumbs, to stop in at the Coldwater-Wilmore Regional Library. His stomach rumbled unchecked as he dropped his head into his hands.

Sam was in trouble.

At the beginning of the summer it had seemed like the easiest thing in the world to just stay friends with Castiel. Hell, they had just barely become friends, in a universal timeframe, and however Sam felt, he would never think of jeopardizing that. Friends was fine with him. But somehow "friends" was a murky territory that Sam could only stumble through, second-guessing his every action, every greeting, every time he reached out to touch Castiel's shoulder or usher him through a doorway. It was alarming to realize he suddenly had no idea where the line was. Sam had tried to work it out by picturing Dean in Castiel's place, imagining how he would treat his brother instead, but that mostly just led to Sam feeling like he needed to vomit. And Sam wasn't trying to read things into it that weren't there, honestly he wasn't, but recently it seemed like Cas had been sort of focused on him—reaching out to _him_, wanting to touch _him_—and that made everything impossibly confusing. He loved Castiel, he knew that he loved him, but he had vowed that was where it stopped, because the only thing more selfish than falling in love with his brother's guardian angel would be expecting that angel to respond in some way, when angels couldn't love, not like humans did.

Probably. Well, actually Sam wasn't sure. But even if they could, even if Cas could, there was no way he would ever…

Long before he'd ever met one, Sam had always been fascinated by angels. When he was still small enough to need a footstool he remembered stretching his hands up to the top shelf of Bobby's bookcase, tracing his fingers down the dark blue spine of a heavy book titled _Seraphim Mythology_, on its cover a beautiful figure engulfed in feathers and light. In the heat-steamed windows above the backseat of the Impala he had drawn pictures of wide, arcing wings and watched them disappear in a cloud of breath. He knew better than to ask questions—angels were connected to his mother somehow, and his mother was off-limits. Even now, with an intimate knowledge of how much more complicated angels really were, there was still some part of him that ached for them, all that grace and faith put into physical form.

Somewhere along the way Sam had started doing something he hadn't done in a long time: reading everything he could find about angels. There was a lot on the Internet, but it was hard to tell what was actual folklore and what was just some rabid blogger on a heavenly tear, so Sam had started sneaking off to the library instead, trailing his fingers down the faded spines of the mythology tomes and pulling them out one by one. He was stooping so low at this point he'd even bought one of those "Heaven is real" books written by people who came back from the brink of death, and which were for some reason available on the bargain shelf of every gas station in the Midwest. He read it under his covers one night by the light of his cell phone and ditched it in the hotel lobby the next morning while Dean was checking out. He knew without even thinking about it that this was one of those secrets he was better off keeping; at best, Dean would think what he was doing was stupid, and at worst it would piss him off. Angels often did for some reason.

A lot of what Sam found he already knew—some of it he'd actually already read, when he was younger—but it all hit him differently than it had the first time, and he lost hours just hunched over a rickety table in a too-short chair, skimming his finger down page after page. He read the descriptions of the angels one after another, his eye always skipping the last few words on the line to see if the next name might be Castiel's. And though he swore to himself that he wasn't looking for them, what always came back to him later, as he stared out the passenger window of the Impala, letting Dean guide them to their next destination, were the stories of angels and humans meeting, working together, falling in love. He stared out at the endless cornfields and wondered if those were real stories, based on things that had actually happened, or if they were just projections, human beings pretending they were worthy of the love of such immaculate creatures. Just wishes, maybe.

Cas could probably tell him, but Sam would never ask.

The sound of a bell ringing on the other side of the café startled Sam so badly his knee jerked up into the table and he narrowly avoided dumping his water into his lap. He looked up to find the moderator standing in the middle of the tables.

"Okay, everyone!" she called out in a false singsong, belied by her fierce, hawk-like eyes darting from face to face. "Time to move along! We'll match phone numbers at the end, so let's keep it moving—chop chop!" She clapped her hands with a sound like a whip cracking, and suddenly the café was filled with the screech of chairs pushing back, voices raised higher in false pleasantries. Sam slid a weary hand through his hair.

All this time to think by himself wasn't really healthy. Dean had about a minute and forty-five seconds to show, and then…

His internal ultimatum was interrupted by a firm hand on his shoulder.

Sam didn't huff; it was just an abnormally short sigh. "Dude, if you're late because you were playing tonsil hockey with the popcorn girl…"

"I do not think I was."

Sam spun around so fast he jerked something in his neck. "C-Cas," he stuttered out, wondering if there was any chance his face felt so hot because of the recessed lighting and not because he was blushing. "Ah…sorry, I was…"

Castiel stepped out from behind his chair and braced one hand on the table, leaning down and peering into his eyes from such close range Sam wondered if he could see the wheels spinning inside his head. "I apologize, Sam," the angel said gravely, his forehead wrinkling as he frowned. "I did not know you were waiting for me."

Cas always managed to pull a smile out of Sam, even when his ears were sizzling. The taller man laughed under his breath and shook his head once. "Uh, Dean, actually. I thought you were him. At this point I'm pretty sure he stood me up, so…"

Castiel's frown tightened. "You are seated," he observed.

Sam bit his lip, fighting back another laugh. "Uh…yeah, Cas, I am." The rustle of muted voices caught his attention, and he glanced past the angel to find that though the speed-daters were all parked at their tables now, at least a dozen eyes were turned his way, evaluating the mysterious figure in a long tan trench coat standing beside his table. Sam was pretty sure no one had actually seen Cas appear—no one ever seemed to—but that didn't make him any more comfortable being the sole object of their scrutiny. Sam shifted in his seat and brushed a hand down Castiel's sleeve. "You know, maybe you should sit down, too…go ahead and take your coat off, and, um…"

Castiel's eyes narrowed slightly, as they always did when he was asked to part with an article of his clothing—usually by Dean, who never wanted them for anything good. Sam smiled and hoped it came off as reassuring, not devious. At last, reluctantly, Castiel shrugged out of his trench coat, pulling the tan fabric away one shoulder at a time; then he folded it in half and sat down with the coat in his lap, looking a little stiff. The waitress was on them before Sam could figure out whether thanking him would be condescending.

"So, are we finally ready to order?" the tall blond woman asked, and somehow even her dangling earrings seemed impatient.

"Oh. Uh…" Sam fumbled to get the menu open, his eyes racing over the appetizers. "Can we get the_ olives chauffé_?" he asked, wondering what that was and how the hell you could get it in Kansas. The waitress turned pointedly to Castiel, but the angel wasn't even looking at her, his eyes making a slow circuit of the café instead, seemingly taking everything in one item at a time. Sam offered a sort of guilty smile. "Maybe we could have a few more minutes to look things over."

The woman rolled her eyes, clearly feeling Sam had been there so long he ought to have the menu memorized by now. But she stalked off nonetheless, jamming her pencil back into the pocket of her apron with a killing blow. Sam turned back to apologize to Castiel and sort of choked on his tongue when he found the angel looking at him with singular focus, those striking blue eyes staring straight into his. Sam caught his breath. Without the trench coat, Cas suddenly looked a lot more like he belonged here, seated across from someone in his sharp black suit at a small French restaurant, the overhead lights soft on his dark hair. They were about one bottle of wine away from a really nice date, and Sam didn't fully trust himself not to order one. The knot of his tie was suddenly uncomfortably tight against his throat, and Sam forced out a cough, tugging it down to open his airways a little,

"So, um…what brings you down, Cas? Did you need something?"

"I do not need anything," Castiel said blandly, picking up his silverware and peering down into the napkin roll. "I came to learn of your current activities."

Sam caught himself brushing a lock of hair behind his ear and forced his nervous hands into his lap. "Right. Okay. Well, I can fill you in…"

He rambled on for a few minutes about the intricacies of the case and the little they had learned so far, long enough for the appetizer to appear and Sam to send the waitress off with two other randomly selected dishes, and then spent a few more watching Castiel pop the warm olives into his mouth one at a time while he talked about Dean getting sick three nights previous after scarfing down Fritos and two cans of bean dip from a shady convenience store. It wasn't until he was done with the story of his brother hunched over the motel trash can and reaching for a few olives of his own that Sam realized what horrible table conversation that was, and he cringed, immensely thankful all of a sudden that this _wasn't_ a date. Luckily, Cas seemed to have tuned him out.

"What are they doing?"

Sam stopped trying to surreptitiously pick salty olive shrapnel out of his teeth and looked up to find Castiel's gaze fixed on the speed-daters, doing a Chinese fire drill between the tables again. The matron with the bell stood guard over the proceedings, watching for runners. Sam braced his chin on his hand.

"It's called speed dating, Cas. You get together with a bunch of strangers, but you only talk to each one for a few minutes before…"

He trailed off, letting the backdrop of greetings and squeaking chairs finish the explanation for him. Sam couldn't help smiling a little as he watched one couple in particular, a man in a red blazer and a woman with long dark hair, share a lingering handshake. Most of these people would probably never want to see each other again, but it was nice to think that it might work out every once in a while, just through serendipity.

Castiel watched until every person was seated and then turned back to Sam, leaning forward over the table as he lowered his voice. "My understanding of human courtship is admittedly limited," the angel said, and Sam pressed his lips together to swallow a smile. "But it was my impression that the process usually took longer. Except in cases motivated strictly by lust."

Sam winced, wondering what his brother had said or done to introduce Cas to that last category. "Well, yeah, usually. But I guess that's why people do this, sometimes…just to get a sense of what's out there without, you know, having to commit." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Sam wished he'd phrased it differently—it sounded too much like how Dean might describe visiting a strip club—but Castiel had moved past that, his brow furrowed in concentration.

"Can you determine that in such a short amount of time?"

Sam shrugged. "Sometimes. Five minutes isn't much, but sometimes it's enough to see if there's a spark."

Castiel frowned. "A spark," he echoed, and the words repeated in his low voice made the back of Sam's throat feel funny. "What is that? Do they exchange an electrical transference of some kind?"

"No," Sam started, and then paused, fiddling with his tie. "I mean, I don't think so. I guess I don't really know." Castiel looked more confused than ever, so Sam forced himself to take a deep breath and start over, trying to deny the strange vibration that went through his body as he met the angel's eyes. "It's potential, Cas. It's just the way that it feels when you're…attracted to someone." His voice took a dive on the last few words, and then he really wished it hadn't, because Castiel leaned a little farther forward to catch what he'd said, and his knee brushed Sam's under the table. Sam thought the shock almost shattered his patella.

"Have you felt that…spark, Sam?" Castiel asked.

Sam didn't know what to say. He couldn't breathe, couldn't handle the way Cas was looking at him right now, like he was searching for lightning in his eyes, something to explain the static he must be able to feel humming through Sam's bones. Sam felt his fight-or-flight response kick in, the adrenaline rush that made every hair stand on end—but he was frozen in his chair, couldn't even find the will to look away from those penetrating blue eyes. Sam licked his lips and took a faltering breath, his lungs flaring open like wings in his chest.

"Cas…Cas, I…" Sam trailed off, hoping the rest of the sentence would figure itself out, because he had no idea where it was going. Probably somewhere he had told himself he'd never go, but God that was so hard when Castiel was staring at him as if he could see right through him, see every screwed-up molecule that had led Sam Winchester, of all people, to think he had any right to be in love with an angel. Sam exhaled and felt the static on his tongue. "Cas, I just—"

"_Tartare de saumon_ and _poulet Champignon_," the waitress announced in a bad accent, rocketing into existence at Sam's back and startling him into banging his knee on the table again. Castiel broke his gaze and leaned back to make room for the dishes. "Anything else?" the woman pressed, a decidedly dry note in her voice.

Sam looked back at Castiel, and then down at the plates, his eyes fixing on the enormous roasted chicken leg he had somehow ordered. He rubbed a hand across his forehead. "Just a beer," he sighed. "Whatever's on tap, please. Thank you." Then he turned back to find Castiel scrutinizing a julienned cucumber, the waitress's retreating steps lost in the clatter of the next bell, signaling they were all out of time.

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Only one chapter to go after this. Thanks for reading, everyone, and for the kind reviews.


	7. Catharsis

A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There's a detailed note about it on my profile page, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.

This story is a set of drabbles set over the summer; it follows "Starbright," and focuses on the evolution of Castiel's feelings as he and Sam grow closer, moment by tiny moment. Rotating perspectives, including Dean's; this story is still technically pre-slash, but getting closer to full slash all the time.

Note: Sorry for the delay on this one; this chapter gave me a little more trouble than I expected. Hopefully it's a satisfying end to this series of drabbles.

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"How did this happen, Sam?"

Sam's laugh was soft, more breath than sound. "Just one of the hazards of the job, I guess."

Castiel glanced down, all of his senses absorbed, somehow, in the particulars of this moment: the tension of the springs in the mattress beneath him, the rattle of the pipes as the shower whistled through the bathroom door, the lingering scent of sweat and spilled blood that always haunted the Winchesters' hotel room at the end of a hunt. But it was Sam who drew most of his attention—Sam kneeling at his feet beside the bed, his body still warm from his own shower, the skin that showed above the collar of his light blue shirt glowing with a lingering sheen of heat. Sam who had one arm crooked across the angel's knees, his head tipped forward to offer the back of his neck, where a knotted twig was obstinately snarled into his long, dark hair. The tips of his bangs were still damp; they lay heavy against the curve of his cheek as Castiel carded his hand through Sam's hair, testing the tension in each strand.

"Dean got the worst of it," Sam was saying, his voice little more than a murmur against the skin of his arm. "At least the ghost just pushed me into a windbreak—it threw him into the moss-infused stock tank. I promised Bobby I'd take a picture if he's still green when he gets out of the shower." He was silent for a moment as Castiel traced his thumbnail down the length of the twig, feeling for the looser strands of hair that would untangle more easily. Then Sam shifted closer, and Castiel felt the heat of his body pressed against his leg, his dark hair cascading away from the angel's hands as Sam tucked his face into the crease of his elbow. "Thanks for doing this, Cas. I think Dean was about to go for the machete."

The Winchesters had not moved far since his last visit, two days earlier. Castiel had folded his wings and reentered the physical plane in Room 7 of the Timberwolf Inn, Coldwater, Kansas, to find his charges engaged in debate over what should be done about the obstruction in Sam's hair. Dean had not been inclined to explain the details of the hunt, but through the onslaught of complaints and references that held no meaning for him, the angel had come to understand that the corpses they'd been investigating were linked to the spirit of a millworker killed by a cursed object, and that Dean was very tired of Sam struggling with his hair. Dean had stalked off to the shower challenging Castiel to try untangling it—and though angels had more direct ways of doing those sorts of things, Castiel had settled down to do so by hand, as the older Winchester had indicated. He had learned by now that humans were very particular about the way in which things were done.

Beneath him, Sam was infinitely still; only the shallow rise and fall of his chest, barely a quiver in the light fabric of his blue shirt, confirmed that he was breathing. Castiel wondered where Sam had learned such serenity. Perhaps there had been other instances like this one, other fragments of debris left in his hair. Castiel dug his fingers into his soft, damp locks and wondered if Dean had done this for Sam, before him. He found that he could not imagine it. Since the moment he was dragged out of Hell, burning ashes raked up under his thrashing fingernails, there had always been a violence in Dean that Castiel could not dismiss. It was unfathomable that he would have the patience for something like this.

Sam shifted against him, and Castiel paused, his fingertips stilling against the weave of tangled strands. His gaze moved down the loose slope of Sam's body until it settled on his bare feet, tucked up against his folded legs, his pale toes fidgeting in the worn brown carpet. For a long moment Castiel watched them without moving his hand, searching for whispers of pain in the curling and uncurling of ten bare toes.

"Am I hurting you, Sam?" he asked at last.

He had the sense that this was something that could only be done delicately—that he had never needed such gentleness as he did at this moment. But he was only a soldier, had always been a soldier. He was not certain he had enough gentleness in him to give Sam what he needed. Sam chuckled and Castiel felt it through the back of his skull, tickling his fingertips.

"You're fine, Cas."

Castiel had never known much of closeness, or touch. It was as unnatural to angels as breathing in, as the soft, shallow inhale that touched his lungs as his hand began to move once more, weaving softly through the knot. But there was something pleasant about that closeness, when it was Sam he was close to. And there was something he liked very much about this sensation, the feeling of his hand in Sam's hair—the suppleness of the slowly drying strands, the way it parted to let his fingers through. There was something unexpected in the way it yielded—something, in that way, like Sam. He liked the weight of it against his fingertips, and the way Sam looked now, his eyes closed and his lips parted just enough to draw breath. He liked the weight of Sam's head in his lap.

"Maybe Dean's right. Maybe I should just cut it."

The words were barely a sigh; Castiel almost lost them in the rush of the pipes, the pitch of the whistle rising with the water temperature. The angel unwound a looping strand and smoothed it down against the back of Sam's neck.

"Why?" he asked.

Sam shrugged with one shoulder, the motion rocking their bodies gently together; Castiel thought of ships on a calm sea, their sails just brushing. "It's just a hassle sometimes," Sam murmured into his elbow. "With things like this, and…" He paused, and then shook his head, chasing a few strands of hair down into his face. "My hair was always short when I was a kid. My dad just cut mine and Dean's the same way, and we were his boys, so…" Another shrug, so small this time that it was nothing but a ripple in the muscles of Sam's neck, tensing and letting go. "When I decided to come back out on the road with Dean, I just…I don't know. I wanted it to be different somehow. So I just sort of…stopped cutting it."

Of all the things about which Sam did not speak, the absence of John Winchester was the most prominent, marked always by broken sentences and enduring silence. Castiel wondered if Sam would ever speak to him about his father, and what he might say, if he allowed himself to find the words. He did not ask now. He gave the stick a gentle tug and a few more strands of Sam's hair came away, falling soundlessly against his neck.

"Has it been different? Because of your hair?"

Sam gave a soft laugh, muffled against his skin. "I'm not sure that's the reason." The hand that had been resting on Castiel's knee slipped down his leg just a little, just far enough for Sam to curl his fingers into the fabric of his slacks, the dark cloth wrinkling around his coiled hand. "There was no one like you, before. There's never been anyone like you."

Castiel's eyebrows drew together. "There were no angels."

Sam's exhale was warm against his thigh. "Well, yeah. But that's not exactly what I meant."

There was something different about the closeness now. Castiel was not certain what had changed. But there was a tension at the points between them that had not been there before—some feeling of expectation, the potential energy of clouds before a thunderstorm. Castiel brushed Sam's hair back and felt it in his fingertips, and wondered if this was static electricity, some exhilaration of molecules moving from him to Sam. The last of the knot unraveled all at once, and the stick came free on its own, landing silently in Castiel's palm—but though there was no reason to continue, without quite realizing it he found he had set the twig aside and slid his fingers back into Sam's hair, carding his hand through the unobstructed strands. Heaven's will was eternal, its timing absolute, and it was not his place to question, not even to consider—but all the same Castiel wondered who Sam might have been, if an angel had been sent to him sooner.

Castiel knew he would not have been chosen, not as a guardian. He was not at all sure why that thought tensed his fingers in Sam's hair.

"You should not."

Sam's eyes flickered open, his dark lashes hesitating against his cheeks. "What?"

Castiel unclenched his fingers, brushing a soft tangle down into the hollow behind Sam's ear. "It suits you. Hair of this length. You should not cut it."

Sam's lips quirked up in a smile. "Okay. Thanks, Cas."

The last of the tension had vanished from Sam's body; Castiel could feel all of him now, the insignificant weight of a human form, resting fully against him as Sam closed his eyes and tucked his head down once more. In that surrender, Castiel felt somehow that he had been entrusted with something precious, something that made him long to stop breathing, as if the world were too tenuous to sustain one drawn breath. The shower had stopped, and though the city beyond them was infinitely loud, a cacophony of car horns and footsteps and a towel rushing through wet hair, the only sound Castiel could hear was the throbbing in Sam's chest, his heartbeat slow as the last drips of water falling from his hair. Sam settled into him and Castiel's hand stilled once more, hesitating against the slope of his shoulder.

"Sam. The stick…"

Sam let out a soft breath, and Castiel marveled that the world held. "Mm. Take your time."

Castiel was not certain how much time they had. He was not at all sure what he wanted, looking down at Sam with his head in his lap, his features captivating in their tranquility. But perhaps he did not need to know, yet. Perhaps this was only the feeling of something beginning.

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The next story in the Other Guardian 'verse should be coming soon...thanks for all the reviews.


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